


candle

by goosemixtapes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Not Really Character Death, theres some description of blood and bruises though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 07:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goosemixtapes/pseuds/goosemixtapes
Summary: Kanaya wakes up in a puddle of blood. And she's thirsty.





	candle

**Author's Note:**

> title is because i listened to "monster" by imagine dragons and "candles" by daughter non-stop while writing this
> 
> i wrote 80% of this in like 2 hours and it's not edited forgive me for my sins

Thirsty. She is thirsty.

Before she feels any other sensation, before her consciousness truly drags itself out of the void it has been falling through, she knows that she is thirsty.

Her throat is so raw that it hurts to breathe. Her mouth tastes sour and musty, drier than the barren desert where she used to wander when she couldn’t sleep. Her body is straining for moisture, struggling to dredge up saliva she can swallow, but it cannot. Her tongue is pressed and papery and swollen.

Her body screams for it.

Other sensations come back slowly, all underlied by the hum of her thirst. There is a buzzing in her legs as her muscles wake up, and she slowly becomes aware of the soreness in the side she is laying on, the way the metal floor presses into her hip. Her torso is almost totally numb, but for an occasional tingle. Her eyes twitch and flutter beneath her eyelids, though she doesn’t yet have the strength to open them. Her cheek, the one pressed to the floor, is sticky.

Water, she thinks. Water, water, water.

It feels as if there are a thousand sands in her lungs, choking her, filling her insides with dust, every granule scraping harshly against her throat. She tries to focus on facts: her name, her age, what had happened in the last five minutes. She used to ask herself those questions whenever she woke up disoriented, on Prospit or on Alternia, but even remembering that now is a mammoth act of mental strength, and as she tries to search for other memories, her thoughts are blocked by the scream of her senses.

Thirsty. Thirsty. She is so thirsty.

All she can think about is the heat marching up her throat. It would bring tears to her eyes and a scream to her lips if she were able to cry or speak.

Water, water, water.

She labors to breathe. The more she panics, the worse the air feels, scraping against her raw raw throat. Her hands curl into claws and flatten again. Momentarily her fingers slide into the thick, sticky syrup on the floor. The almost-numb area on her stomach twinges. Her nostrils flare.

She can barely focus on her other senses, beneath the roar of her thirst - but a harsh fruity scent wafts to her nose.

She opens her eyes.

Her head spins for a moment as her vision adjusts. The cold metal floor is bathed in light. Her hands are trembling with the exhaustion of moving, and as she glances down, she realizes three things in quick succession.

One, the light is emanating from her skin - which is no longer pale gray, but glowing white.

Two, she is lying in a puddle of green. Her fingers, her dress, her face - all are stained with thick jade liquid. She smells like rot - like the lusi she used to see dying in the desert at home. The scent is so overwhelming that for a moment it makes her throat quiet down, long enough for her to notice the third thing.

Three, trickling into the green puddle is a drop of fuchsia.

Her eyes lock on the place where the green and the fuchsia mix, swirling together like paint. Her eyes follow the rivulet of pink across the floor as it widens into a river, drizzled over the horn pile and still dripping from a shape barely defined in the low light. Again, that scent: harsh and fruity.

Her tongue is so swollen that it scrapes over her teeth, barely fitting through her jaws. She twists her neck forward, leaning out until the very tip of her tongue is able to dip into the fuchsia liquid and draw a drop back into her mouth.

It is the sweetest thing she has ever tasted.

She has only managed to swallow a few drops of the liquid, but it feels like a heaven-sent gift. Her tongue flares to life; the howl of her throat is momentarily soothed. She savors it, sharp and sweet and tangy, for as long as she can until the coolness of the liquid fades.

She feels it start again: the itch crawling up her throat, turning to a scratch, a scrape - and the pink river is just out of her reach -

And then she’s dragging herself pathetically across the floor, unable to stand or even sit up, pulling herself across the metal with only her jade-stained fingers, licking up whatever fuchsia is in her reach, coating her insides with the soothing sweetness, and she has to stop every few seconds to catch her breath again and every time she stops her throat starts up again, and her entire body is shaking violently as she dry-sobs with relief from the fuchsia and frustration that she can’t crawl faster, and the thirst is all consuming, go, go, go, drink, drink, drink, go go go go go -

She is on her hands and knees by the time she reaches the horn pile. Her body is fizzing back to life. But her limbs are still shaking. Her throat is still screaming. Her mind is still focused on only one thing.

The fuchsia is seeping from that thing on the pile, the shape that is too large and too still to be anything good. She claws her way to it, reaches out with both hands.

The troll’s skin is too cold for it to be anything but dead. She stops in her tracks. She stares at the body. For a moment, the haze lifts from her mind. A name bubbles to the forefront: Feferi. Not someone she knew well. But someone good. Someone kind. Someone who didn’t deserve to die here, struck down by her best friend, her only grave a clown’s hoard. Someone who didn’t deserve this: her limbs stiffened by rigor mortis, her eyes white and blank, her skin blooming with pink bruises from the sweet tangy blood vessels popped under her skin -

And then Kanaya isn’t thinking about anything anymore.

~

Kanaya sits back onto her haunches, blood dripping from her mouth and splattering on the laboratory floor. Messy. She has never been this messy, except that she doesn’t care. Her throat is soothed. Her thirst has abated. Her stomach is full.

At least, the organ of her stomach is full. That area of her body has larger problems entirely. The feeding was frenzied and thoughtless, but her memories are coming back to her now. The gaping hole punched through her torso is helping them along.

Kanaya reaches up to her mouth and wipes away Feferi’s blood with fingers still stained green. Then she casts her eyes around the laboratory. The room is a crime scene: yellow staining the walls, green splattered across the transportalizer, a few stray drops of fuchsia still coloring the horn pile. The remains of the mother grub are here somewhere, as well.

The mother grub. Kanaya’s face twists into a snarl as she catches sight of a swatch of purple cloth, pinned to the ground by one of the horns.

She is able to stand now, and to walk, and to run. One hand finds the lipstick tube still safely tucked in her pocket; the other lifts Eridan’s cape from the floor. Carefully, she ties it around her midsection, feeling only the slightest twinge as it tightens around the mortal wound.

Kanaya leaves Feferi’s pale, drained body on the horn pile as she stalks to the transportalizer, clutching her lipstick tightly in one fist. She has drunk her fill. She is thirsty for more satisfying things now.


End file.
